Uploaded
by SkiesAndFairytales
Summary: Norman Jayden was dead, and Blake was supposed to be free of him for good. It's a pity that didn't exactly happen.


Had my friend play Heavy Rain (I got the Case Closed ending on my own playthrough) and felt inspired to drabble something post-Uploaded. I don't know if there's much of a fandom here anymore, but maybe after the PS4 release...? Well, if anyone reads this, I hope you'll like it ;w;

* * *

"He's been buried too days in some godforsaken hole in the back-end of beyond near Washington," Perry muttered, dusting off his suit coat. " _I_ have to attend as a matter of protocol."

Huh. That was good riddance, Blake reasoned. Norman Jayden _might_ have been an all right agent, but something about him got on Blake's nerves.

"I'll pass," he replied without any qualms about it, leaning back, "Jayden and I didn't see eye to eye on much." That was being very generous; he had hated the kid. Fucking genius FBI superhero. This is what you get for flying solo, moron.

"No problem," he replied, "I understand…" Not only had Blake disliked Jayden; apparently he didn't have any other friends either.

"Hey, sir?" he asked before Perry left, "I still have his glasses. What should I do with them?"

"Well he won't be needing them again," Perry remarked, not sounding like he was sorry about that in the slightest. "Do whatever you want with them."

Blake squinted at the glasses, turning them around in his hands. He didn't understand why they had been such a big deal to Jayden – they looked quite basic; black sunglasses with _ARI_ printed on both of the earpieces. But the rumor had it FBI was testing some new technology… this could well be it, right?

He tried to get back to working on the case, but his eyes kept drifting back to the glasses. Curiosity was human, and no one was paying any attention to him. _Ah, fuck it_ , he reasoned, putting the glasses on.

As he leant back again, the scenery changed around him. He was on some kind of a cliff, complete with the wind blowing and birds singing and all that. It was rather nice until he heard footsteps. He turned to look at the person, and it was _fucking Jayden_. God.

"You're dead, Jayden."

"Of course I'm dead; you wouldn't be here otherwise," he replied with his nasal voice, frowning. "The circumstances are less than preferable, but I'll take what I can get. Now fuck off, Blake."

"Is this a hallucination?" Blake asked him, starting to feel uncomfortable with the interface. There was something wholly daunting about it, and he wanted to leave. But it wasn't like he could, since Jayden had told him to. He wasn't going to be bossed around by the FBI, not today or tomorrow.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Jayden scoffed. "I'm obviously dead - your words, not mine - but how real is this?"

"I'm tired of you, Jayden. Why don't you just answer me?" They had finished the case, for god's sake. They had caught the killer and he was supposed (key word) to be free from FBI Agent Norman Jayden for good.

Jayden shrugged in response, looking down at his smart shoes. "Because I have nothing to lose. Nothing. I'm already dead... Was it the tripto or the case, Blake?" He still wasn't looking up, but he was a bit weird like that.

Blake stared at him, not quite comprehending. "Are you a fucking junkie?"

"Oh," Jayden said softly, smiling in a morbid way, one part sad and three parts self-hatred, "You didn't know about that."

"Yeah, I think we've established that, you fucker. How do you even work? What do you know?"

The thing shrugged, "I get my information from the database stored in the ARI. I'm an…. uploaded persona, I suppose. But since he hasn't been here for a while... well, let's just say I was expecting for certain... changes to have happened, improvements maybe. But if you don't know, it was probably the tripto..." he sighed, "What a noble death. Great going, Federal Agent Norman Jayden. I wonder what they will say, you know, officially."

"I obviously haven't been keeping tabs on you. Perry just told me you died; I told him I won't attend the funeral, that's all."

"Great," Jayden replied, nodding. His smile had faded, and now he just stared at Blake apathetically. "I knew you were an asshole, but you won't even have the decency to attend my funeral? You could go spit on my grave while you're at it."

"That would suggest I care about your death enough to go spit on your grave, and I don't."

Jayden laughed, hollow. "Figures," he agreed. "So, What are you going to do now? I imagine you caught the origami killer, and now... well, what comes next?"

"None of your business, that's what."

"Take the glasses off, then. Leave me to watch over the interface in peace; it's the only reason for which I exist, anymore."

That sounded reasonable, to Blake. It really did; the guy was dead and even though they didn't get along, he could leave this... downloaded persona to deal with the ARI by himself. It was basically a part of Jayden, after all; it was that important to him. And he was already _dead_.

"I could use the ARI for the cases I work on, couldn't I?" he sneered at the other man, "One of us still has a life."

Jayden stared at him motionlessly for a while before seeming to buzz back to life. "You couldn't," Jayden replied, "The glove was lost when Norman died, not to mention the side effects of the ARI are... less than pleasant. You'd need to counter them with tripto, and I can't really encourage anyone to go down that route."

"How do you suddenly know about his death?" Blake asked the thing skeptically, frowning, "Also, are you trying to tell me that on top of being a fucking junkie, you're that way because of the FBI?"

"I suppose," Jayden shrugged, "But I was lucky to be included in the initial test phase for the ARI, very lucky. I don't think I would trade that for anything."

"Not even life?" He couldn't imagine being so in fucking love with his work that he would die to get to test some federal bullshit. Then again, he and Jayden probably lead quite different lives to begin with.

He shrugged again, "Life? Would you call what I did living? It was just a question of when and how I would die, honestly. I think Norman knew that as well, he just didn't care all that much."

"I never want to work on a case with a suicidal FBI nut job again," Blake sighed, disbelieving. Maybe he had distantly realized that Jayden had problems, maybe he had paid a little bit of attention after all, but this was on another level compared to what he had imagined.

Jayden smiled to him, a bit more real but still very spiteful. "One can always hope?" he offered. "Now, would you leave me to my own devices? I can even ask you nicely if it makes you leave?"

"I don't want to leave if you tell me to."

He sighed, "Look, I know your image of Norman is fucked up and you believe he came to steal your case and take all the fame and then just withdraw back to his fancy fed life without a care in the world – no need to look so defensive, your words – but I think you have it wrong. I mean, he wanted to solve the case just as much as you did, Blake. He did his best and I think it's a pity you started out on the—"

"You know nothing about me," Blake told him, mostly because it sounded a bit too real and he didn't want to consider the possibility. For the other part it was because Jayden had a way of crawling under his skin and he wanted to finally be free of that. "Nothing. And the fuck do I care what your _fucking noble_ reasons were? I fucking hated you and now you're dead. Fuck you."

"Fuck _off_ ," Jayden countered, seething. "Maybe it was _me_ who had it wrong, believing you might actually have a heart buried very deep under all your shit."

Blake knew he could have resolved the tension by taking off the glasses. It was as easy as that; he could put them in a locker and never have to see them again, or destroy them. Data-Jayden could spend an eternity here, left alone to ponder the vast emptiness of his own existence. Maybe he could even do some research in the FBI database, since he was so into that stuff.

There was something about leaving this kind of a situation unexplored, however. He wanted to know more, and the upload was probably the best way to do it without hurting his pride. No one else would ever know, because Jayden was dead and contained safely on his own server.

"What are you going to do here? It's only a vast emptiness, after all."

Jayden shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe try to get into the FBI database, see if I can be useful in any way."

"Really? Can't you lay off the cases even after you're dead?" Admittedly, he had hated Jayden when he was alive, but… even he had to admire foolish dedication of this caliber, just a little.

He snorted, shaking his head. "It's complicated. I have Jayden's memories and personality, but I am still an AI. Even though I feel emotions, they are programmed ones. Jayden would appreciate me doing something worthwhile, too." He dangled his head unhappily, staring ahead. "I have finished downloading your memories, so you can go if you want to."

"What?" he barked, disbelieving. "What the fuck, Jayden? Who gave you the fucking right?" He took a menacing step towards the projection and grabbed it by the collar. There was something surprisingly tangible about it, but he didn't dwell on it, instead shaking the man in front of him.

"You did, by coming here," the thing replied with a satisfied smirk that only infuriated him further. "I needed more information on Norman and how other people perceived him, and you have done me a favor by providing it. Do you want me to change my behavior based on how you think I should act?" It didn't sound like an offer, but a bite.

Blake swore in that moment that he would stay far from machines in the future. Anything, everything, he'd even get rid of his smart phone, first thing tomorrow. The AI was too… machine-like for him to feel comfortable in the interface, and seemed to be growing more and more foolhardy by the moment. "No, don't," he grumbled, "One Norman Jayden was more than enough for a lifetime." He stepped back, releasing the AI. It fixed its collar immediately, like its breathing had been obstructed before. It was a derogatory play on humanity, that's what it was.

"Suit yourself," he shrugged, "And please leave. You've been very rude towards him, and I can see now that despite my initial assessment, he wouldn't want you here."

"What initial assessment?"

"It was just a workplace crush," he hissed, suddenly no qualms about volunteering information such as this. "Nothing serious, nothing that could have ever led to anything." He paused for a while, then continuing, "Actually, it was almost quite sad. He died knowing you hated him. He was right."

"A workplace crush on…"

He raised an eyebrow. "The downloaded data shows you have a higher IQ than what is actually true. I'm calculating the difference…"

"Would you just stop fucking around with all your machine lingo?"

"Fuck you, Blake," he quipped, adopting the nasal voice and out of place accent Blake hadn't even realized was gone before. "I cared about the case and I cared about you – yeah, that was a fucking mistake. Get the fuck out of here." Apparently he was one of those people – Blake had noted this before, as well – who needed to raise their voice and swear to feel like other people were actually listening to them. "What does it take to get you to fuck off?"

"I think I have more than enough of a reason," he scowled, "I don't want to see you ever again, alive or dead."

"And I hope this knowledge will _fucking haunt_ you… And it's mutual," Jayden agreed, and it was the last word that would continue to ring in Blake's ears every time he remembered the FBI agent – which wasn't often, mind you –, maybe because it was the last thing he ever said.

He tossed the glasses away, returning to his desk. Good riddance, he reminded himself, with Norman Jayden. He hadn't been a bad Agent, but he had instead been unhinged and probably not the sort of person who should be running around passing judgment on other poor bastards.

He kept glancing at the glasses while working, but it was only a few days later that he tried to enter the interface again. This time, however, he didn't get transported to another world or start hallucinating; they were just black glasses through which the world suddenly seemed considerably darker.

Huh. Well, it wasn't like he had wanted to see Norman's smirking face again anyway, not to mention that it was most definitely better to stay away from both the ARI and the triptocaine in the future. They had killed Norman, after all.

Not that he cared.


End file.
